As The Pendulum Swings
by darknessoftheflame
Summary: The idea that fate is set in stone is somthing that young Naruto is begining to find laughable as one little fall sets the pendulum in motion. Naruto who has always been forced into an underdog role is about to find out how special he really is. Hina/Na
1. Proluge

As The Pendulum Swings

Prologue

Yeah I know another new fic but the idea hit me like a ton of bricks and I couldn't put it down.

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A blond haired boy with a large scroll slung across his back races across rooftops in the waning evening light towards the forest in the nearly abandoned training ground 22. As the boy, Naruto, made it into the forest he tripped and hit his head on a sharp rock. The boy got up dazed but determined to continue and graduate and missed that under the blood was a very small amount of bone, not enough to do any permanent damage, indeed red chakra was already healing the fractured skull but enough to give the boy a severe and very much ignored concussion. Naruto continued on and opened the scroll determined that a 'scratch' and a 'headache' were not going to rob him of his chance to graduate and focused through the pounding headache enough to struggle out the meanings of the characters written on the scroll. He didn't struggle because of his headache (although it definitely did not help), nor because he was the idiot his classmates claimed him, no Naruto Uzumaki did not know how to read very well because what little he did know was self taught. Naruto is not well liked in the normally pleasant and 'soft-hearted' village of Konoha. Still the boy used the pictures and the characters he knew, however few they were to know the name of the first jutsu and how to do it but not a word more.

_'Ka ge bu....shin, kagebushin ah man bushin is my worst technique!' _Naruto thought cursing. He looked quickly at the other ones on the list but his head swimming and the foreign character told him to just take the first one.

_'I'll try the others if I have time... on second thought I'll copy them down if I have time.' _Naruto thought as his head gave a particularly harsh throb. So the Orange clad Academy student went through the motions for the kagebushin, having to recheck the scroll several times to remind him of what signs to use only to find that it was still the same cross seal with no othere hand seals to it. Finally in frustration he poured a slightly larger amount of chakra than he did for a regular bushin and in a poof, a kagebushin appeared with along with a vicious throb as his mind copied itself into the kagebushin.

"I think" Naruto groaned from the ground holding his head, slurring slightly eyes fuzzy as the concussion worsen from the strain of copying his mind. "I'll call that good, I should copy a few of the others" Naruto however could not bring himself to move to the Forbidden Scroll. What happened shocked him, his clone moved to him and picked up the blank scroll the original carried in order to write down good ideas for pranks and wrote down three of the jutsus, including all of the kagebushin before rustling was heard. The original managed to stand up as the kagebushin, in a moment of concussion induced brilliance picked up the smaller scroll and dashed off for home, after all they didn't want the scroll taken away. Out of the foliage came an angry Iruka who was met with the sight of a bloodstained and ill looking blond.

"Hey Iruka-sensei I learned a jutsu from the scroll that means I pass right" The blond academy student said barley managing not to slur. He didn't want to look weak in front of Iruka after all.

The rest of the events of the Mizuki incident happened relatively normal until it Mizuki is beaten and tied up. The blond tired and hurt sank down and sat not bothering to dismiss the hundred kagebushin he had summoned to defeat Mizuki and watched sleepily as the traitor was taken away by ANBU.

"Naruto close your eyes" Iruka said to the original, who was the only one on the ground. The blond did so too tired to protest and felt his goggles removed and something cold put in its place, causing the boy to almost sigh in delight as it relieve some of the terrible pain in his head. "Okay Naruto open them" As Naruto opened bleary blue eyes he noted idly that Iruka's forehead protector was missing and that his goggles were in his hands. Reaching up slowly out of disbelief but mostly exhaustion he felt the engraved cool metal of a forehead protector. He leapt forward towards the young man with a cry of joy in a sudden and short lived burst of energy. "Let's get you home eh" Through all of this the kagebushin watched cheering lightly, why only lightly? Well they were copies of the original down to the headache even if the originals headache was worse due to strain. Two of the bushin propped the original between them and carried Naruto off telling Iruka to go to the hospital instead promising to meet up with him for dinner at Ichiraku's the next day. As the platoon of blonds reached the door another blond copy, the one who was sent home earlier, opened the door to let them through. As the two clones put the original down on his bed they realized that the quickly filling small apartment was not big enough and woke the creator up to bid him to dismiss most of them. Naruto did so bleary-eyed, and dismissed all but the two who carried him. It was a good thing he was already laying down because his headache exploded as information flooded the three blonds causing the other two to dispel causing even _more_ pain to Naruto who finally dropped off into the peaceful and pain free abyss of unconsciousness.

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In the end I took this to school and conducted spell check on it, be verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry thankful I did because the sheer number of red on the page that indicated spelling problems reminded me just how BAD my spelling is.


	2. First Swing

As The Pendulum Swings

First Swing

I'm so exited you all seem to like my story, I have several people who have already put it on favorite and alert lists :) I'm going to try and keep a fairly frequent updates this time until I finish so don't be afraid to yell at me if I don't post at _least_ one chapter in two weeks without prior notice. I'm a senior this year and my senior projects already done so I have No excuses short of technical difficulties.

Now to those who reviewed I have a few notices to place.

I'm going by the assumption that ryo is like Japanese money which translates to _ROUGHLY_ 100 yen or in this case ryo to 1 American dollar

I would like to say to those of you who have not read my only completed story Tearful Cinderella that after my hard drive got wiped over summer I no longer have a program with spell check on my computer, I will be trying to get the chapters to school before posting them.

I'm going to try and keep a fairly frequent updates this time until I finish so don't be afraid to yell at me if I don't post at _least_ one chapter in two weeks without prior notice. I'm a senior this year and my senior projects already done so I have No excuses short of technical difficulties.

hhrforever: You're my first review for this story :) however I'm afraid that harems have never really appealed to me this will be a Hinita/Naruto relationship mainly because I think their cute together, I believe I should also mention that its a prologue so I intentionally made it short, for my other chapters I'm hoping to make them longer than I have in the past keep your fingers crossed :D

Rose Tiger: Thank you for noticing that, I'm used to typing on a more advanced program so using just plain word pad for the initial typing causes some differences and I didn't realize that my paragraphs were spaced so close my old programs just put in a bunch of space in between each paragraph, if anyone else notices cosmetic problems like this PLEASE tell me I live an extremely oblivious lifestyle. :P

animusic96: I will alow the inclusion of the Mizuki incident be put up to vote, at the time I wrote it however it had not really seemed necissary since nothing changed I will leave the voting up until about 3 chapters from now depending on responses I will change the first chapter to include the Mizuki incident or not.

Chewie Cookies: First I would like to say that you're name is awsome :D, and secound as I said before the proluge was intentionally short since it was in fact a proluge. This chapter on the other hand is shorter than I had wanted but it is still one of the longer chapters I have done at about 2 and a half pages.

I would also like to apologise to anyone who recieved a false update notice I accidently put this chapter up before it was ready.

Now then on with the show:

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_Recap_

_Naruto did so bleary-eyed, and dismissed all but the two who carried him. It was a good thing he was already laying down because his headache exploded as information flooded the three blonds causing the other two to dispel causing even more pain to Naruto who finally dropped off into the peaceful and pain free abyss of unconsciousness._

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Naruto drifted in a sea of black for a while before something...strange and terrifying happened. Clips whirred by, too fast to catch more than a glimpse. a blur of pink hitting yellow, a man with a large swords life being saved by a smaller man from another silver haired male, a colossal creature of sand, a funeral,...on and on until it reached it suddenly thrust him into a clip of a mass war people dying and suffering beyond belief and a colossal... creature of some sort destroying them all led by people wearing black cloaks adorned by red clouds too far away to make out their features. The world **burned.**

Naruto flung himself into a sitting position, nearly flinging himself off his bed in the process, heaving for air, eyes wild with panic. He had never been as terrified or heartbroken as in that dream, a dream that was already beginning to fade into indistinct details. Flinging himself up he dove for a pen and paper lest he forget anymore before he wrote it down, he didn't know what it was but he knew instinctively it was important. Finally finished writing out a bitterly pale comparison to the disturbingly vivid dream he sighed and shuddered one last time. Iruka had told the half unconscious preteen that he had three days before he had to report back to the academy for his team and that he needed to get registered in those three days. Deciding to put off doing so until tomorrow Naruto decided to take it easy and wander around for today, there was a caravan in town which always made him happy since they never seemed to see anything wrong with him and would allow him to buy things without gouging him as long as he behaved.

Naruto got up and went to his kitchen and made himself some oatmeal for breakfast, since he wasn't in a hurry, and poured himself some orange juice. Polishing off the last of the decidedly bland meal, the villagers wouldn't sell him anything better after all, Naruto finally pulled on his old jump suit, wondering if maybe it was time to get a new outfit while he was out idly.

_'That would be good'_ Naruto thought. '_The villagers won't let me buy anything less bright and even I know that I shouldn't wear something this bright while on a mission.'_ It wasn't like he didn't like orange, no infect it was his favorite color but he never wanted to wear this much of the color, it was just the best outfit he had been able to acquire. He liked the suit fine and had placed the swirl on it himself but it didn't really help him when he had to run from the villagers when they decided to mob him again. Which thankfully did not happen as often after he reached his third year of the academy, right around the time he started hearing about the Uchiha's everywhere he went which was about 4 years ago now. Having decided to take advantage of things he grabbed Gama-chan and headed out the door after hiding the purse on his person. Most people wouldn't help him if someone stole from him, actually it was likely they would help the person who was stealing from him, 'because staling from a demon doesn't count as stealing', they would say, which made no sense to him. Flinching a little as he stepped out into the bright day as his head throbbed a little he paused.

_'Maybe I was hurt more than I thought' _Naruto thought a little worried. For as long as he could remember he healed extremely fast, it even seemed to be getting faster and faster for a while, until he stopped getting attacked so frequently. _'Something to think on latter' _Naruto mused. He began to walk along already starting to feel a little better. He had been through much worse anyway so it wasn't exactly going to slow him down much. He traveled along until he hit Market square were there were stalls from the caravan set up. He could feel glares from people as he walked by but used to this behavior by now he just grinned and kept walking.

As he approached the first stall he stopped and looked, it was a sweets stall. Deciding against the sugary delectable's he continued to the next stall which was a cloth merchant. Keeping this in mind he continued on to find an incense stall. Beginning to become irritated he came to the next stall which sold knickknacks. He paused amused by some of it before pulling out Gama-chan. Deciding he had enough to buy something as long as it was small he decided to look around. Looking around he saw all sorts of random things from a toy kunai to a blown glass cat to a clay miniature hat. He paused by the crystals finding them rather appealing he saw a blood red crystal hanging above this section. As stated it was a blood red crystal hanging on a delicate silver colored chain that it was attached to by a bit of dark, almost black, orange etched metal that started at the top and swirled around the crystal tightly. Deciding it was cool he looked up and saw that the price was 100 ryo, pleased it was cheep he made to grab it and stopped. The reason being that the wind blew and swung the red pendent. It left a short sort of pinkish trail of light as it did so that mesmerized him, he watched it swing left then right then left again. As he watched it soon became evident that the pendent had no intention of stopping. The merchant at the stall saw his fascination and walked over.

"You like the pendent kid? Its cheap, found that one lying on the road if I recall." The Merchant said. Naruto looked up at the merchant pulling his gaze from the pendent for the first time in three minutes.

"Hell yeah it cool, especially how it just keeps going and going like that!" Naruto said exited feeling somehow connected to the blood colored neckless. The merchant chuckled at his excitement.

"Do you know why it swings like that kid?" The merchant said. When naruto shook his head no the man continued. "It swings like that because it's a pendulum kid, which means that as long as it isn't disturbed it will keep swinging like that forever."

"Cool!" Naruto exclaimed. "I'm definetly buying it but I think I'll look around a little more before I do." Naruto grinned when the man said he would hold it for him and thanked him as he continued to look. He continued to look at the odd things the man had and after ten minutes of not finding anything he desperately wanted he was about to give up and buy the necklace when he saw a few scrolls. He was instantly reminded of the scroll he still had beck home and realized he should probably make time to sneak into the library to improve his reading some or maybe buy a dictionary off one of the caravan peddlers. Deciding looking at the scrolls wouldn't hurt since there was only five there he wandered over to them. He puzzled out the titles of each scroll and looking at the price he decided he'd get two _'But which ones' _Naruto thought '_hmmm... well we have _cats or dogs: which is more intelligent_, uhh that's a definete NO, next is _basics of sealing: whys and how's _hmm maybe okay next is _basic taijustu_... naw nothing I don't already know, okay next is..._ Seals: Make your own Exploding notes_... HELL YEAH, this and the basic seals are on the list, next is _Seals: Make you own storage seals _eh what the heck add that too, I dunno what it is but if its half as cool as exploding notes it should be cool.' _

Naruto dashed over to the Merchant with the tree scrolls in hand and waited as he got don't with a customer, who on the way out glared at him like he had insulted her. He bounded up to the man holding the trio of scrolls excitedly. The merchant blinked as he saw them.

"I still have these?" He said confused. "Ah well no matter, assuming you still want the pendent your total comes out to 1600 ryo kid." Naruto grinned as he pulled Gama-chan out of his hiding place once more and counted out the mans money, happy his trip had not cost him much. He grabbed his purchases which he had opted to not have place in a bag in favor of hiding them on his person, except the necklace which he wore proudly out in front.

Naruto continued looking around at shops, not buying anything, until he found a massive tent that was set up as a clothing store. Walking in he was almost immediately attacked by an older woman who according to what he could make out of her rapid speech found his cloths offensive, he barley managed to get out that he was looking for a new shinobi outfit before he was dragged off by the 20 something year old woman. She was pretty enough he supposed as she dragged him to the shinobi section, with long dark brown hair with reddish brown highlights and expressive coffee colored eyes, but he was beginning to wonder if she had any need to breath at all. She finally stopped talking and asked him his measurements. He told her and she zoomed off into the stacks after asking him to wait 'just a minute'.

She came back with a handful of clothes and shepherded him to the changing rooms where she told him to dig through the cloths and find something he liked and leaving the room with a warning she was not letting him walk out looking like a fashion disaster. Shifting through the cloths she brought he found some pieces he liked. He found a tight fitting shirt that looked like someone tore it up and couldn't find a matching material and patched it with very dark orange fishnet instead, as well as a pair of black cargo pants with lots of pockets and some black and dark orange sandals but he couldn't help but think something was missing in the ensemble and after getting the woman to quiet down a second asked what they had as far as jackets. She called over another girl to take back the cloths and proceeded to drag him off to another section, showing him the shinobi coats he shook his head not liking them, and they move to the civilian section were he saw it. It happened to be a black leather trench coat with far more buckles than necessary in the same dark orange metal as the metal that surrounded the blood colored crystal.

"you know kid' you'll need to change the color of your headband and exchange out the chain out that necklace, they don't match the rest, the necklace I can help with the headband...well we have dye." She said a mile a minute as always. He agreed exchanging out the silver chain for an intricate looking dark orange one that suited it better and getting the homemade dye in the same color from the girl. His total came out to 10157 ryo. Wincing at the steep price he coughed up the money nearly emptying Gama-chan in doing so. He left the tent, leaving his old jumpsuit behind after taking his stuff out of it for her to burn, and wandered around stopping to buy a few cheaper groceries and a dictionary and headed for home quite broke and very glad that he would be getting more than just his orphans check this month as otherwise he'd have to be living an a very tight budget in order to pay for his run down old apartment.

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Well I hope you enjoyed it and please don't forget to yell at me if I take longer than two weeks for the next update.


	3. Bearable Trouble

As The Pendulum Swings

Bear-able Trouble

Yeah yeah yeah I know I said I'd update more often but hey shit happens. I unfortunately still don't have a proper writing program on my computer AND I no longer have access to school computers so your all screwed and no COMPLAINING. ROTFL

Add Mizukis scene?

for 1

against 1 (my vote counts too I'm even nice and just making it 1 vote like everyone else)

naruto7332: unfortunately (although my warning somehow got cut out) I don't currently have a decent writing program on my computer and the one I've been using doesn't have spell check although there shouldn't bee too many spelling errors in the last two chapters just mostly misused words and Naruto specific misspellings like bunshin. I'm glad you like it though.

I do not have an account 2010-03-14 chapter 2 : Yes the lack of explaining the visions is part of the plot although it wont be explained until much further along. At the momment he has no idea he's even had a vision. Also not to be rude but your not the first to ask so I feel I should mention (although no one reads these) this IS a N/H its even on the SUMMERY people *sweat-drops*. all rudeness aside I am very much happy you like my story

notgonnasay09: yay! you like my outfit too. ^.^ Another person dissed my coat. IT has POCKETS GALORE. .

Nibowin: I know but I have an extreme talent for misspelling and its not the same as originally writing it in a good program which is why there are still so many problems with my chapters. And no knock off can keep up with me did i mention that. *smiles innocently*

animefan109:thank you for the compliment and thank you for being the only one who cared enough to complain *cries and glomps*.

Chewie Cookies:yeah its really annoying too hopefully this one turned out much longer

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Recap~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"you know kid' you'll need to change the color of your headband and exchange out the chain out that necklace, they don't match the rest, the necklace I can help with the headband...well we have dye." She said a mile a minute as always. He agreed exchanging out the silver chain for an intricate looking dark orange one that suited it better and getting the homemade dye in the same color from the girl. His total came out to 10157 ryo. Wincing at the steep price he coughed up the money nearly emptying Gama-chan in doing so. He left the tent, leaving his old jumpsuit behind after taking his stuff out of it for her to burn, and wandered around stopping to buy a few cheaper groceries and a dictionary and headed for home quite broke and very glad that he would be getting more than just his orphans check this month as otherwise he'd have to be living an a very tight budget in order to pay for his run down old apartment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Present~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As he walked in his apartment he set his stuff down of his decrepit old couch and wandered over to his kitchen in order to grab himself some cup of ramen. He though briefly about immediately diving into all of his scrolls but well his head still kinda ached. If it werent for the fact that they would laugh and kick him out he would have gone to the hospital as he was getting kinda worried now. But alas they would in fact laugh and kick him out so there was no real point in going and he didn't want to worry the old man over a little headache no matter how odd it was he still had it.

While Naruto ate his ramen he began to think about his dream from the night before. Most of it hadn't made any sense at all but somehow he knew it was important although then again it WAS just a dream right? _'There's no way that giant creature is really going to descend and kill us all' _he thought sweating a little the terror of it still vividly memorable. Still something about it all seemed to be burned into his brain. _'Right along with this blasted headach!' _Naruto briefly considered if maybe bashing his head on the table would get rid of the incarnation of pure evil called a headache. In the end he didn't wanna risk making it wore so he managed to resist... barely.

_'At least I get to grab ramen with Iruka later'_he though as a wide grinn crossed his face. But for now with a heavy heart Naruto threw away his empty Styrofoam container of noodly goodness and turned towards his doom. For a moment Naruto stared at the scroll on his table and his bag and sweated torn between being petrified by the evils of reading and exited by what the scrolls contain. After all Naruto never did really learn to read with any fluency not to lack of trying or stupidity but more of a combination of pride and complete lack of help before he met Iruka which was only just this last year.

Iruka was the only academy teacher that never tried to sabotage him even though he hadn't shown any real liking to him at first either. After the first week or two Iruka seemed to warm up to his (supposedly) slowest student and sometimes helped his fill in a few of the wholes in his education the most prominent being Kawimari and the Henge Jutsu. But Naruto never told Iruka his most embarrassing secret since he hated looking stupid in front of his precious person. Naruto barely knew how to read at all let alone more than a character or two of kanji and didn't really know how to write, he could copy but that hardly qualified since he had no real idea what it said or why those characters made that word.

Which leads us to our heroes current problem. 'The scrolls of headache uppingness are truly a fearsome foe.' (naturally vocabulary is not his strong suit) Naruto would have to make liberal use of his newly bought dictionary if he wanted to read more than a handful of words off the page. This on its own would have been a headache inducing event as previous attempts told him but know he already had one. Still he would preserve after all kagebunshin and exploding tags are already awesome who knew what other treasures he had there. Suddenly a thought struck him while reminded of those previous events. how exactly was he going to protect these from the viligers this time. After all they always destroyed his poor harmless dictionary when they raided his house which still happened every once in a while. One of the more common points is when the caravans come to town which is why he rarely buys anything at them after all whats the point if they'll just destroy it. This time had been fine since it was early and no one was drinking yet but he couldn't leave this stuff here now and he couldn't take it with him incase of theft or destruction nor could he hand it to anyone to safeguard so what to do?

In the end Naruto deciding for henging himself to not look like he had anything and go and stash what he didn't want to have destroyed over the next week in his favorite meadow where he trained in a foxes den. He never understood why before but foxes had always followed his directions and the male fox from this den more so than any other since he spent more time around him. Now Naruto knew why the foxes liked him and why they freaked out so badly when he had brought a fox he'd found previously. The fox hadn't survived the civilians rage and Naruto almost hadn't either. Still they would protect his things and not harm them if he asked. Naruto had though about being mad at all foxes for his problem and especially the kyuubi but he couldn't shake the feeling there was more to the story.

Soon Naruto reached the meadow where he saw signs of an animal fight. With a cry of worry he dropped his things and ran for the den hoping his friend and his mate were simply enjoying a rabbit. Sadly as he go there he say his fox friends both hurt grievously and he cried. By the looks of the marks it had probably been a bear though why he had no idea. The pair looked up weakly as their life slowly drained issuing a warning to the boy who smelled so much like one of them. As Naruto turned he saw the bear who at the time of his distraught entrance had been out of view because of a tree. Naruto noticed the wounds some man made but mostly short punctures and cuts from his fox friends. The bear had apparently heard the little girl at his feet walk by and attacked her although by her position unharmed of the ground shivering he'd say he had walked in in time to save her a mauling by the foxes murderer. He knew logically it was the fault of whoever put the bear in the rage in the first place and didn't put him downs fault but for the moment all that mattered was the little girl and his now dying friends.

All of this happened in a second as the bear who had noticed the boys arrival decided the girl was the larger threat and lifted himself up in a fury about to maul her as she screamed, having been to petrified before to do so, and Naruto moved as fast as he could wrapping a wire around a kunai as he ran and then throwing it at the girl. Heart racing as his wire raced against the bear going around the girl in a maneuver he had only just learned and Naruto **pulled **as hard as he could. The girl was yanked out of the way sustaining cuts from the wire and scrapes from being dragged and was just barely safe. Naruto dropped the wire and was running again at the bear as it came to the realization its prey had moved and turned towards the now sobbing girl. He came up as the bear attempted to lunge and kicked it in the jaw as heard as he could knocking it on its back and effectively caching its attention. Narutos heart was beating so fast he wondered idly, in the spare second he had before the bear charged him, if it would come out of his chest. He hadn't noticed anything like this during his fight with Mizuki but then again he **had**been in a serous amount of pain and really ticked. Also right now his emotions leaned more towards grief which wasn't as numbing as the righteous anger he had felt during his fight with Mizuki.

Naruto watched the bear rush him and preformed the cross shaped seal necessary for a Kagebunshin and made 8 or 9 confusing the bear momentarily before its nose told him which was which and rushing him again but that moment was all he needed as his clones descended on the bear and leaped into the air delivering the bear a kick to the to of head with his heal as it passed propelling Naruto into a flip as he landed smoothly. The bear now littered with kunai one or two being in vital points including one that had been unintentionally but luckily shoved through the bears eye and into its brain by a grossed out looking clone who had still been hanging on to said kunai. The sensation of blade through the soft eye matter was not much more pleasant than getting covered in some of the gross matter.

The clones all dispersed themselves as Naruto walked towards the now passed out girl briefly checking her physical state. She had the cuts from the wire and scrapes but none were deep as he clothing had taken the brunt. assured she wasn't bleeding to death he cut the wire and picked her up and walked towards the foxes. Setting her down he went to check on his two friends whom he had always been afraid to name. Names were a form of bond and he foolishly though if he never named them it wouldn't hurt as much when they passed. He knew now though that the lack of names had meant nothing as the furry companions looked at the fox jinchuriki with fading eyes. He kneeled down crying next to their den knowing they weren't going to make it.

"I'm sorry you too, i didn't get to you in time to save you. I could tell you fought valiantly though. That bear was just too mad eh. How bout i finally give you too names huh?" Naruto said attempting to smile through the tears. "How about Akio and Ayaka" Naruto sniffed. The foxes semed to nod at Naruto in agreement and the newly dubbed Akio nugged his mate weakly. Ayaka moved with the last of her energy moving a small black fox with one red ear towards Naruto. the others had clearly been killed in the struggle.

"You want me to take care of this one? alright if that's what your last wish is" Naruto said teats still streaming slowly. He picked up the foxes checking the gender quickly hiccuping softly. "I'll name him now so you can move on knowing." The foxes seemed to smile at this. "How about Akemi I...I think that means dawn of beauty kinda girly but he was born to something so ugly I... guess I hope to ... change that." The pair seem somehow pleased as they finally breathed their last breath.

Naruto quickly got up cradling the small waif of a fox who looked mostly like his father due to all that black fur but that right ear and now that he look left paw were the same color as his moms. splashing water on his face to clean his face from tears Naruto wondered if his eyes would be Akio's (father) green eyes or Ayaka's(mom) gorgeous gold ones. He supposed he would find out when the small fox was older, for now if he wasn't mistaken the fox was both blind and blue eyed being only a day old, if that.

So Naruto gathered the fox placing its shivering form in one of the ridiculous number of pockets on the inside of the coat making sure the head poked out so the frail thing could breath. Naruto dug a quick but deep grave using shadow clones for his newly orphaned foxes family vowing to make a headstone for them and vaguely remembering his original purpose for coming there and quickly put his scroll under a tree. All of this seemed to take forever with the emotional drain but in reality from the moment he entered the clearing until now had been maybe 8 minutes, half of which were spent fighting the bear. Naruto remembering the girl carefully hauled her on his back and set a quick jog to the hospital.

_'Somhow I just know i'm gunna get blamed for this at least until she woke up'. _Naruto groaned and set a harder pace for the hospital with the fox kit curled happily in his pocket pleased with this new sensation. Sure enough as he entered the village proper, thankfully the meadow was inside the walls of Konoha so he didn't have to get past the gate, he got what looked like the beginnings of a lynch mob. Naruto barely restrained a wince as he picked up speed, luckily there were a lot of other little kids around so if he hurried the mob might not form before things were explained by the girl since no one would believe him. Naruto saw the hospital just up ahead but didn't slow eyeing the crowd nearby wearily. He crossed into the hospital ER and tensed ready for the uphill battle ahead. A redheaded nurse looked up in the unusually calm ER and immediately sneered.

"We don't treat your kind deamon brat!" The prettly nurse snarled. She breathed in to start screaming at him in agusto but Naruto cut her off.

"**Im not asking you too you blind broad!**" Naruto yelled. "I'm asking you to help the girl who's unconscious on my back." Naruto glared. A kinder surgical medic took not of the girl hearing him yell and gasped and before the redhead could start in on him she rushed over and helped put the girl on a gurney.

"Where did she get these wounds!" She exclaimed already checking her and closing the injury's.

"I found her in the woods about to be attacked by a bear so I wrapped a wire around a kunai to pull her outta the way cause I was too far. I'm glad she was so light" Naruto said knowing he wouldn't be believed.

"HA the demon admits to attacking her" The red head yelled in loud triumph. The nicer surgical medic looked at him uncertain but willing to wait before judging but the redheaded pretty-faced witch threw him out and announced much to his dismay that he had attacked a 4 year old something girl. With a sigh Naruto leaped to his feet and ran as fast as he could on rooftops to the hokages tower. An ANBU dropped beside him as he got nearer clearly intending to make sure he got there. whether his reason was a nice one or not didn't matter to Naruto, after all his Ojisan would be the only one who would really believe him. Naruto with the mob following behind held at bay by the ANBU presence made it into the tower and then his Ojisans office. Naruto sighed in relief as he looked up at the old man who ran the village chest heaving from the whole ordeal, he'd be fine in a second though he always was. _'Awww man if this takes too long im gunna miss my free raman' _Naruto nearly cried again at the thought.

"Naruto, what is all this about you attacking a child?" Ojisan better known as Hiruzen (no idea how to spell that) Sarutobi the Sandaime Hokage asked the young blond. So he explained what had happened in detail. "Oh dear, that has been blown out of proportion" Sarutobi sighed

"Your telling ME old man I'm never gunna make it to raman with Iruka now!" He said whining. He felt he deserved to whine a little today it had been pretty rough. Sarutobi laughed loudly at the boy and called in an ANBU.

"Could you call Umino Iruka to my office please?" Sarutobi asked. Naruto grinned, he might just get his ramen after all. The ANBU bowed and left and Sarutobi turned back to Naruto. "You should probably stay here till this is cleared up and in the mean time I don't see why we cant all have a little raman party for our little hero." Sarutobi told him with a smile. Naruto cheered and after briefing Iruka they all had a raman break in the old mans office and the whole situation was explained to the village as they did so by a Jounin although most would wait for the girls statement and of course the few currently raiding the boys apartment who thought obsessively that the brat was just a demon and that there was no way he saved her. But for now Naruto could forget and be happy with his precious people who had welcomed the little black fuzzball named Akemi just fine and had promised to help him get food for the kit in the future and of course the emergency bottle from the Inuzuka for the moment.

When Naruto did make it home he realized, after looking in dismay at the trashed apartment, he never did actually **read**the scrolls. He sighed and went to bed tomorrow he supposed.

* * *

Yay end of day two! whew that was a lot of writing. I hope this chapter makes up for some of the wait :). 3,000 words or so without a/n woot.


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